Photo provided by Luke Helsel The Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity house is seen months after a June fire that destroyed the top floor of the building and caused significant damage inside. The building will be fully restored and upgraded to modern standards. 

HOUGHTON — Lambda Chi Alpha plans to fully restore and upgrade the College Avenue fraternity house damaged in a June fire. 

Chapter president Luke Helsel said hopes the fraternity will be able to move back in for the fall semester in 2023. The third floor of the house, which was destroyed in the fire, will be rebuilt. 

“We’re not going to have the permanent haircut,” he said. “They’re going to be putting trusses up pretty soon here.”

The cause of the June was not determined. 

For this fall, Lambda Chi Alpha is operating out of seven houses — four in Houghton and three in Hancock. Some houses have all members. Some, like Helsel’s, are a mix. 

“That’s the main focus of the organization, just provide a brotherhood like a football team would, like any sports team would,” he said. “Just share the same values, and build on those values and help improve the brothers’ lives through brotherhood. So with everybody having their own house, it’s been really easy to do that. And it kind of keeps it interesting, because you’re gonna have a new house every weekend or every week.”

The Lambda Chi Alpha house dates back to 1899, when prominent lawyer Allen Rees tapped noted architect Henry Leopold Ottenheimer to design his home, according to MTU’s Copper Country Architects site. Along with the electrical system, heating and insulation will be brought up to code. Lambda Chi Alpha bought the house in 2005. 

It will also be brought into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities act. 

“We’re going to be the only Greek house on campus that is ADA-compliant, so that’s really cool,” Helsel said. 

The house will be restored to its original appearance as much as possible. It won’t be 100%; the original house exterior used a rare African wood which has since gone extinct, Helsel said. 

But both the fraternity and the larger community are interested in maintaining the historical look of the home, Helsel said. 

“A couple of my professors that are from the Houghton/Hancock area were telling me, ‘Please keep the pink, keep the pillars, keep everything,'” he said. “That’s what we plan on doing.”

After the fire, Helsel gave members a couple of weeks to grieve and regroup. After that, he started contacting officers to let them know how their roles would change. 

“We just rolled with that all summer, and got some really detailed plans down, and now we’re executing on those, which is huge,” he said. “The big thing for us is recruitment, because it’s really easily quantifiable.”

The fraternity got nine new members during fall recruitment, its best number in six years.

“This fire strengthened our camaraderie with each other, our foresight as a brotherhood, and our individual and collective resiliency,” said recruitment officers Mason and Luke Mariuzza.

Lambda Chi Alpha also still participated in its annual food drive with Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly, which was held Saturday. 

“It has always been a great privilege of our organization to serve the community in meaningful ways, like our annual food drive…” said philanthropy officer Isaac Cooper. “The brothers of Lambda Chi Alpha believe that it is necessary to reciprocate the support from the community that has been shown to us in the past.”

Correction: A previous version of this article claimed the cause of the June fire was a electrical in nature, this has been corrected to reflect that the cause of the fire was not determined.